The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus […] On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,”

This has been reported widely, it was even in The Telegraph, and yet no one seems to be engaging with it.

The president of the Italian Civil Protection Service actually went out of his way to remind people of the nature of Italy’s fatality figures in a morning briefing on 20/03:

I want you to remember these people died WITH the coronavirus and not FROM the coronavirus”

What does this actually mean?

It means that the Italian death toll figures could have been artificially inflated by up to 88%. If true, this would mean the total number of Italians who have actually died of Covid19 could be as low as ~700. Which would bring Italy, currently a statistical outlier in terms of Covid19 fatalities, well in line with the rest of the world.

It means thousands of deaths currently widely attributed to Covid19, and being used to justify the introduction of measures equating to medical martial law, may not have died of covid19 at all but of their serious chronic co-morbidity (cancer, heart disease etc.).

This statistic is not a secret, or in any way controversial, it was in The Telegraph after all, but people seem to be ignoring it, or reading around it, or perhaps simply not understanding it.

We reported on these statistics a few days ago, and many people who should know better simply reacted to the headline without either reading the actual article or understanding the statistics.

Given the bill that is having its second reading in the UK parliament today, it is important this information is spread widely and quickly.

This information was compiled with the assistance of the Swiss Propaganda Research group, we once again recommend everybody read their site. They are a must-read, a must-follow and a must-share. It is the best resource for Covid19 information on the internet.

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Abid Mushtaq

Apr 30, 2020 3:12 PM

If die with Coronavirus or died from Coronavirus the actual cause (whatever co-morbidities may be) that leads to the death Of the person is Coronavirus. May be these co-morbidities expedited the process.

Clearly false. In Colorado (USA) a 35 year old man was found dead in a park. He had a blood alcohol level of nearly .6%. This is a fatal level. Because he tested positive for COVID19, his death was listed by the Center for Disease Control as a COVID death, yet local authorities told the public, this was not correct, he died because he drank a fatal amount of alcohol.

You can not say an 85 year old person, who has diabetes and pneumonia, and died from symptoms of pneumonia, died from COVID because the presence of the virus was in his blood. We know that 98% of COVID cases are mild in form, not deadly.

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wolf

Apr 12, 2020 7:47 PM

name the President of the Italian Civil Protection Service.

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Stephen M

Apr 1, 2020 6:45 PM

….THE PHONY CORONY VIRUS. Where are the bodies stacked high…Its so contagious that 6ft apart BS Then on that logic filthy, packed like rats, INDIA should have 100 MILLION cases right……????
Welcome to their planned next step to their Global plan… FORCED VACCINES and TSA AMERICA.

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Cassandra

Mar 28, 2020 5:22 PM

Another distorted story by Off Guardian — one that can be easily checked if one were concerned with truth instead of propaganda. What Ricciardi actually said is: “On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus.” Key word: death certificates. [This person accuses us of ‘distortion’ and then proceeds to ‘correct’ us by citing the exact quote we feature in the article! She needs to read more closely – ed]

The head of Italy’s NHI told a different story: “But experts also warn that the death count, like the number of total infections, could actually be much higher than what is being reported since many people who die at home or in nursing care facilities are not tested if they were asymptomatic. “It is plausible that deaths are underestimated,” Silvio Brusaferro, head of Italy’s National Health Institute, said Tuesday at the daily civil protection press conference. “We report deaths that are signaled with a positive swab. Many other deaths are not tested with a swab.”

These ‘corrections’ in no way counter anything in the article, which is citations solely and wholly from the relevant Italian authorities – with no interpretation from us. This is a blatant attempt at distortion – ed

At least in Finland the mainstream media has told very clearly, that it’s more dangerous to those with pre-existing health conditions, but still very bad disease to even healthy persons, have read testimonials etc… No claim has been made that everyone has died solely because of Corona. Don’t know how media has been reporting in other countries.

In Canada it is the same. They are reporting this is a serious issue that needs to be taken seriously and that these measures are done to help our citizens who are the most vulnerable. On a side note the second highest rates of people with corona virus who are Hospitalized are people between the ages of 20 and 40.

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Fabrice

Mar 30, 2020 1:43 PM

Question

I’ve just written a post that contains some very meaningful updates about my last previous post and they have been published soon after, now it looks like they have disappeared, have you crossed out my last post? Why? If you haven’t, then, what else happened?

Best regards.

Fabrice, greetings from Italy.

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Fabrice

Mar 30, 2020 1:06 PM

In Italy, things are far worse!

Here is the smoking gun!

Updates.

As of March 26, 2020 and out of a sample of 6801 COVID-19 patients dying, the most remarkable thing is that mean age of patients dying for COVID-2019 infection was 78 and that as far as the absolute number of deaths by age group, median age for women was 82 and median age for men was 78.

To point out also that in Italy life expectancy is 85 for women and 81 for men.

The second most remarkable thing is that out of a sample of 710 COVID-19 patients dying in-hospital for whom it was possible to analyse clinic charts , 2.1% of the sample presented with a no comorbidities ( 15 deaths ) , 21.3% with a single comorbidity (151 deaths ) , 25.9% with 2 ( 184 deaths ) , and 50.7% with 3 or more ( 360 deaths ).

Hence, there are only 15 patients with no previous disease who died of Coronavirus and represent only 2,1% of the sample above mentioned.

Anyway, the two samples from a statistical point of view are quite significant and if we extend these results to the totality of the data collected at national level which as of today ( reference: March 30, 2020 ) report a total deaths equal to 10779 and then it will turn out that 2,1% of 10779 is 226, which means that with a good statistical approximation so far throughout Italy only 226 Italians with no previous disease have died of Coronavirus.

In practice, out of about 60 million people residing in Italy, if we remove the approximately 24 million Italians with chronic pathologies (Report “OsservaSalute” end 2017), the result is about 36 million Italians with mild or zero pathologies, well, in reference to these about 36 million Italians with mild or no diseases, only about 226 Italians have died from Coronavirus so far which means that the death rate for Coronavirus of Italian people with mild or no diseases is equal approximately to 0,000627%!!!

Furthermore, the Italian media mainstream have never reported the special report above mentioned and because of the fact that some Italian people are starting to smell the rat they still just say ( only sometimes ) that the Coronavirus is the real cause of death only for a minority of Italian people.

Welocome to the wildest Orwellian regime ever seen in Italy since the birth of the Italian Republic, 2 June 1946.

When I wrote in my two first posts ” died of” or died from”, actually I meant and I mean “died with” ( except those patients with no comorbidities who obviously died from coronavirus ) which is quite different, I hadn’t written in this right way because I’m not an English native speaker, I was also in a hurry when I was writing those two posts and so I didn’t write properly because I had taken for granted this fundamental premise that in Italy is quite known among Italian people ( a very small minority ) who are interested in counterinformation about several matters of national interest.

2. However, here is the update.

“Characteristics of COVID-19 patients dying in ItalyReport based on available data on March 30th, 2020” by Italian National Institute of Health.

The results are almost the same, it is worth emphasizing the following facts.

Deaths under the age of 50 years.

As of March 30th, 112 out of the 10,026 (1.1%) positive COVID-19 patients under the age of 50 died. In particular, 23 of these were less than 40 years, 19 men and 4 women (age range between 26 and 39years). For 2 patients under the age of 40 years no clinical information is available; the remaining 15 had serious pre-existing pathologies (cardiovascular, renal, psychiatric pathologies, diabetes, obesity) and 6 had no major pathologies.

It is also noteworthy that the Italian media mainstream have never spoken about this fundamental aspect of the matter and because of the fact that some Italian people are starting to smell the rat they still keep on saying ( only sometimes ) that the Coronavirus is the real cause of death only for a minority of Italian people.

Put it this way – if we didn’t KNOW that Covid-19 was a different flu, and we were just saying and believing that this many people were dying of “seasonal flu”, would these numbers be alarming in scope or in the population they are affecting?

not an argument.
Also, it’s not a dumbfuck way to put it. If already 60% of the UK population have had, and beat, COVID-19, without much more than a sniffle, it really is the case of would we have even known about it?
Now, we don’t have a control to compare against, so we don’t know if the infection rate would otherwise have been way higher and then way more deaths as a result.
Also, the China stuff….. how much of that would need to be faked to cause the financial collapse of the West. Has it also caused the financial collapse of China? Is that a plausible line of reasoning? Maybe not, but we should be asking the questions and exploring the answers.

As of March 20, 2020 and out of a sample of 3,200 patients treated for Coronavirus, there are only 6 patients with no previous disease who died of Coronavirus and represent only 1.2% of the sample above mentioned.

Anyway, the sample from a statistical point of view is quite significant and if we extend these results to the totality of the data collected at national level which as of today ( reference: March 25, 2020 ) report a total deaths equal to 7503 and then it will turn out that 1.2% of 7503 is 90, which means that with a good statistical approximation so far throughout Italy only 90 Italians with no previous disease have died of Coronavirus.

In practice, out of about 60 million people residing in Italy, if we remove the approximately 24 million Italians with chronic pathologies (Report “OsservaSalute” end 2017), the result is about 36 million Italians with mild or zero pathologies, well, in reference to these about 36 million Italians with mild or no diseases, only about 90 Italians have died from Coronavirus so far which means that the rate death for Coronavirus of Italian people with mild or no diseases is equal approximately to 0,00025%!!!

Furthermore, the Italian media mainstream have never reported the special report above mentioned and because of the fact that some Italian people are starting to smell the rat they just say ( only sometimes ) that the Coronavirus is the real cause of death only for a minority of Italian people.

Welocome to the wildest Orwellian regime ever seen in Italy since the birth of the Republican Italy, 2 June 1946.

Best regards.

Fabrice, greetings from Italy.

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pigswiggle

Mar 28, 2020 1:34 AM

I think this article is exactly backwards. Other countries are almost certainly undercounting their death tolls from the coronavirus. From a but-for causation standpoint, the virus is without a doubt a cause of death in these cases. In fact, especially because testing is so wanton, there’s almost certainly more deaths that have *not* been attributed to the virus at all than those that have even when underlying health issues were present. If anything, Italy is counting more accurately than other countries, not less accurately.

I do mean that, obviously. Phone swiping. There is indeed evidence of what I’m saying although not systematic of course. (If it were it needn’t be argued.) There are reports from doctors of undercounting in the US media, for example. But it’s also just obvious through reason. First, governments have a huge incentive to undercount and refuse testing. Second, many governments, because they are neoliberal and incompetent, have been negligent in securing adequate testing supplies and have enacted strict testing regimes that refuse testing to all but the most obvious cases. Third, it’s just the nature of how this works to undercount. Only “confirmed cases” get counted in the death toll, which means people who have died with a positive test result. This is bound to miss many deaths. Italy appears to be doing a more thorough job than any other country. And that makes sense, in fact, since the area of Italy that was hit hardest is considered to have one of the most robust health care systems in the world.

Under-testing will also miss a lot of mild and asymptomatic cases, of which there are purported to be many, as well as those who have had the virus and are now immune. Systematic testing of a sample population hasn’t been conducted, to my knowledge, and it is not known, therefore, whether the virus is indeed novel – in fact there is evidence it may not be. Until we have this data we can’t calculate accurate mortality rates. Accuracy of PCR tests has also been brought into question, and it is suggested by some that they can’t isolate CV19, rather corona viruses in general, and also can’t detect viral load, which makes differentiating an active infection from a non-active infection impossible. There are a lot of interesting posts and links on articles, I’ll let you peruse at your leisure. A2

Almost all mild and asymptomatic cases will be missed. That’s the nature of every disease, and this is the case even in influenza death rate statistics. It’s considered a “case” fatality rate for this reason; a case exists where a person seeks treatment from medical professionals who then diagnose the condition. You can never–and will never–have “accurate mortality rates” in the sense that you are demanding. Every argument you make applies just as well to influenza. Note: this outbreak is objectively worse than influenza, with an objectively higher *case* fatality rate and hospital admission rate. That may well be partly or even mostly attributable to a lack of a vaccine, but that is the situation in which we presently find ourselves.

And keep in mind, it’s not the deadliness per se of the coronavirus that is concerning. It’s slightly more fatal than the flu. But it’s also a very rapidly spreading virus for which nobody is vaccinated against. This is what makes it especially dangerous for vulnerable people. Which includes health care workers, who absorb massive doses of it while treating people without adequate protective gear because our capitalist governments have failed us.

All of this is unsubstantiated or doesn’t fit the available facts. Flu-Related mortality rates are based on projected estimates in a population-based study over a significant period of time. Covid19-related deaths are not. More often than not they are based on a very small and biased sample of ‘those tested so far’, or ‘confirmed cases’. You can spout fear propaganda if you want, but most of it isn’t accurate or the figures don’t substantiate it.

CV19 has actually been downgraded from a High Consequence Infectious Disease in the UK.

You really aren’t displaying any indication you have read the piece above. Nor are you posting any sources to back up your boldly-made assertions. These sorts of soft-trolling techniques are being used a lot atm. So please, post something with some sources or let’s end this chat for now. Thanks.

Doesn’t RT-PCR stand for ‘Real Time PCR’? I am little confused about that.

[comment edited – A2] Interesting reading, I’m currently trying to gather info. How reliable this is in relation to virus detection I can’t see. I also think it’s worth noting that realtime and conventional PCR tests rely exclusively on the quality of the source DNA template they use, which is another area lacking clarity.

A virus is just an RNA fragment with sufficient sequence similarity as to allow it to insert itself into your Gene sequence and be replicated into new DNA. Viral load may be determined by quantification of replicates expressing that sequence but it’s a touchy business. There have to be controls and an established baseline and reference gene’s from outside the target region. Typically complex algorithms accompany most commercial assays that tease out and/or control all of these variables. But they take years of clinical validation. I doubt any existing qPCR tests for COViD 19 can offer much beyond the most rudimantary information. But they can give a basic pass fail, though even that will be of questionable accuracy in any individual case.

Pretty clear you know nothing about PCR. qPCR is quantitative PCR. It can quantify Gene expression by comparing replication of target sequences against a control. RT-qPCR is real time qPCR and allows us to quantify in real time DNA transcription through each replication cycle using fluorescenct tagging of probes. Beyond that I have no idea what you’re trying to say and you don’t either.

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Eric Blair

Mar 27, 2020 11:50 PM

According to the CDC 80,000 people died from the flu in the U.S. in 2017. Why weren’t we asked to stay home? Why weren’t the hospitals overwhelmed? WAKE UP!

That was for the whole country over a 12 month period in a bad flu season. By comparison, we’re at 1700 in about three weeks, a third of which are from one city. Also, it’s still just beginning, so buckle up.

you can see from the downvoting that its a waste of time reasoning with people on this topic. most people can’t get their heads around geometric progression, much less understand comparisons of historical data over a year vs 1 month acceleration. believe me i have tried

Multiple mainstream news articles including CNN place the number of influenza deaths in the United States in 2017 at around 80,000. The articles were obviously fact checked and cite the CDC and W.H.O. as sources. The CDC website now lists the 2017 stats at 61,000 deaths for 2017. Things are getting interesting. It’s either much worse than what we see in the media or not as bad as it seems.

Oh, also keep in mind that, unlike that yearvis-a-vis influenza, society has taken extreme measures to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. There’s just no comparison that any reasonable, informed person could ever make here.

To put this in perspective, NYC has about 2.6% of the US population. If you extrapolate 600 deaths in three weeks (and really it’s closer to one or two weeks) in NYC to the entire population for a year, that’s 400,000 deaths. Now, that’s likely an overestimate because NYC is also denser than the rest of the US, but however you slice it, it’s really ugly. I’m not trying to get my parents needlessly killed.

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Kim G

Mar 27, 2020 3:26 PM

And yet, hospitals and morgues are filling up. Yes, I get that perhaps many or most of these folks weren’t long for this world before cornavirus, but it’s inarguable that their deaths have at the very least been accelerated, perhaps by a significant factor.

So what’s the implication of this article? That we should just stop all the quarantines and social distancing and let the weak die?

Economics may well at some point force that. We shall see.

Meanwhile expect more government flailing around an issue that they dare not even discuss.

So what’s the implication of this article? That we should just stop all the quarantines and social distancing and let the weak die?

It sounds like the right thing to do: Not letting the weak die. And obviously I don’t want my grandparents, or yours, to die.
There is a price to this lockdown however. A price paid by another group of “weak” people: Not bodily weak, but monetarily weak. Poor people.

Societies all over the globe pay a hefty price for the recession that’s coming, not to mention in liberties and rights they now already have lost.

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jiri

Mar 27, 2020 9:41 AM

Exactly, if you die in car crash, for sake of the argument, and during the autopsy doctor find that you have empty stomach, then is clear, you death was caused by starvation

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Fabrice

Mar 27, 2020 7:34 AM

Status of COVID-19

As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK.

The 4 nations public health HCID group made an interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify COVID-19 as an HCID. This was based on consideration of the UK HCID criteria about the virus and the disease with information available during the early stages of the outbreak. Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall), and there is now greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase.

The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID.

PS in reference to the final comment “Welcome to the wildest Orwellian regime!”, obviuosly the same is true in Italy , France, USA and so on, the common factor of all these Western countries is NATO, just a strange coincidence? I don’t think so.

When you have a chronic illness, such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular or respiratory conditions, all of which are underlying factors in the majority of CoV deaths, you are basically counting the days no matter what. Something’s going to kill each and every one of us. So, for those who come to this situation, each day is even more of a blessing. With or without CoV, something is going to kill them sooner rather than later. People who have these conditions KNOW this. Everyone on earth should not be expected to place their lives in a bubble to protect medically frail individuals from…. what? Their days are numbered, as are the ones I have on Earth, too.

Dee Cee
Let’s just get this clear. To make it simple…people with psoriasis are often on immune suppressant drugs. Those people are living healthy productive lives. However getting something like Covid 19 could be disasterous for them because of the drugs they are on. There are all sorts of people out there living life fully and young that have underlying conditions. To say it’s okay that these people were going to die anyway is just thoughtless and cruel.

You have forgotten one thing… I am 83, still here, yet many much younger have gone…most owing to a drink/cigarette/lifestyle…so why should I be blamed and resented because I am still here?
I am here because I took life as precious, so did not throw it away!
No mention about the millions of youngsters who all over the world waste police and other emergency funds getting stewed over each weekend…so EVERY person deserves medical treatment, with result based on the way they have been physically responsible gor themselves.
Also, Coronavirus IS thus season’s Corona type….law should state folk who HAVE a cold should be indoors, anyone free to notiify authorities of folk who ignire this.
In truth, our awful politicians were scarrd stiff at all the mass demos last year, sparked by Greta Thunberg…so the right wing fascists amongst them…..used falsely statted Corona, to put us under unlawful house arrest.
I went through WWII..so these politicians have done what Hitler failed to do without a shot being fired!

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Yarkob

Mar 26, 2020 9:08 AM

“ We reported on these statistics a few days ago, and many people who should know better simply reacted to the headline without either reading the actual article or understanding the statistics.”

really?! you surprise me…

*cough*

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Kratoklastes

Mar 25, 2020 11:33 PM

It means that the Italian death toll figures could have been artificially inflated by up to 88%.

No, it’s far worse than that. You’ve used the wrong denominator.

If the promulgated number is 100, but the actual number is 12… the promulgated number is overstated by (100/12)× which is 8.33× which is 833%.

So

It means that the Italian death toll figures could have been artificially inflated by up to 833%.

If we’ve learned nothing else about the media recently, it’s that they don’t do math. Keep that in mind when reading anything. “This was written by someone who likely majored in journalism.” Were any of these the smart kids you grew up around?

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John Pretty

Mar 25, 2020 7:57 PM

It makes perfect sense. Worldometer added a new column the other day, “tot deaths/1M pop”. Ignoring San Marino, whose population is tiny, the top 5 are:

Italy 124
Spain 74
Iran 25
Netherlands 21
France 20

The UK is way below this on just 6.

If you take the figure for Italy 124 and multiply by 12% you get: 15, which is much more reasonable. Spain’s figure is also way ahead of the rest for some reason.

That ‘some’ being why it is meaningless to aggregate the various national figures, no?

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pigswiggle

Mar 25, 2020 6:50 PM

What’s with the surge in hospital admissions then? Causation is not clean and simple, to be sure, but, whatever it is, it is clear that a viral epidemic is indeed sending a wave of people to the hospital and putting them in critical conditions. Doctors aren’t going out into the community and dragging people in there.

I have never heard of hospitals and their personnel being this overwhelmed by an epidemic – lacking capacity for its victims and safety equipment for personnel as has happened in Italy, Spain, New York, and to a lesser degree in Seattle.

this is a very good point, regarding hospital beds. but one thing, I have yet to see or hear anybody mention this is why not look at total deaths per million/per day (both the “per million” and per day are arbitrary) and compare it to historical norms. you can compare to March of previous years in a country to adjust for seasonal. add a trend component if need be. Thus, if all other things are equal, and Spain is reporting 500 deaths a day from corona, but compared to norms, the total deaths are only increasing say, by 200 deaths, then the 200 is a better reflection of what is going on. need to do over a week or so to get an average that is not influenced by an outlier day.

Although I upvoted, there’s also a requirement to account for whether the comparison week had some other charactgeristic (then or now) – if last year was a particularly benign flu year, and/or this year is a particularly nasty one, for example.

Ideally, it would be best to calculate some rolling daily average (which would have the benefit of giving a rough estimate at some error bars around the average) and then test if the two intervals were statistically different.

People are approaching the numbers as if everything’s deterministic, when it’s not. There’s vast amounts of uncertainty embedded in every number – including ‘confirmed cases’, given that the test spits out at least 60% false positives: “Zhuang et al” (2020) say it’s as high as 80.3%, with 75% probability that it’s above 47%.

(The flip side of that: it implies that the false negative rate is above 50% too. Permitting a person who tests negative to leave, is slightly worse odds than a coin toss)

No, but fear mongering media does put people into panic which floods the hospitals, Immune systems are compromised out of fear as well making people more prone to sickness. Jobs being lost, more stress….any respiratory issue (flu, pneumonia etc being diagnosed as Covid19) …testing kits 80% false positives….this pandemic is far from it…this is a smoke screen as congress and the world continue to pass laws under citizens noses. CEO OF URGENT CARE CAUGHT LYING ON THE NEWS ABOUT HUGE LINES OUT THE DOOR…DAMN LIES! WAKE UP PEEPS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJlWrJ5JQNE

By the way, health care workers are disproportionate victims here. They are also the healthiest victims. They receive massive “doses” of the virus while treating patients with insufficient protective equipment, which causes more severe symptoms. The more they are overwhelmed, the more nurses and doctors will die. We are all a potential murder weapon.

Actually in most cases where I have seen detailed information, they don’t need to drag anyone anywhere, they are already residing in Hospices or nursing homes etc. In Italy the average age of the deceased is 82.

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jay

Mar 25, 2020 2:13 PM

Boris’s Address to the Nation…”Are you dying, perhaps you are a bed blocker. Are you afraid that you will die before you recieve The Liverpool Care Pathway? Perhaps granny is a bed blocker in just this situation. This is why, I must bring in the social distancing rules. Experts have told me, too many such bed blockers will die before they can recieve their scheduled LCP. Do not visit and comfort the dying instead, because I am not heartless, you can say goodbye by mobile. You must obey these instructions, the dying are relying on you. Remember, we are all in this together, except if you have decent medical insurance and don’t have to worry about all the austerity cuts. Enjoy your kool aid”.
Drivel I wrote and posted earlier in the Mail. It didn’t go down well at all…hahahahaha

Sheep brains do not realise that red flagging is just absolutely the wrong thing to do.
The Mail is defo an intel op (as if any of the mainstream media isn’t), the comments full of paid shills using shill software such as megaphone:

The Megaphone Desktop Tool acted as a wrapper around an RSS feed from the GIYUS website. Originally, it gave the user the option of going to a particular site with a poll, and if the user chooses to go to the site, the software then casts a vote automatically, when this is technically feasible, but that feature had been discontinued.

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Teresa Shepherd

Mar 25, 2020 1:17 PM

Perhaps deaths with co-morbidity should or could be described as COVID=19 exacerbating pre-existing conditions. The question is, would the person have died at that moment [i.e. with COVID-19]?

Not really. Many people die and test positively for a virus. It doesn’t mean that it killed them. A lung cancer patient and lifelong heavy smoker who dies tests positive for coronavirus. What killed them?

It’s not that easy to establish the exact cause of death in a single patient with co-morbities. Best way is to use statistics and check the number of all-cause deaths that day with what you would expect from previous years. If Coronavirus is such a significant cause of death there should be a noticeable spike. So far this has not occurred. In fact, the graph of over 65 year-old deaths in Italy shows less deaths this year than in previous ones.

Covid-19 being the last straw… but still the actual cause of death if tested positive. From my observations Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have been underplaying the problem. Deaths and numbers for each area are not easy to find. I’ve been told [hearsay] that relatives are being asked to give permission in writing for the cause of death to be recorded as Covid-19. I can see the argument for eugenics, which if the case, would explain the delay in lockdown when WHO were urging it and it had been implemented much sooner in some countries with the result that the increase in numbers have been far lower, a third or less. Same with the USA. Eugenics could also explain the delay in accessing ventilators, which to me could either be deliberate or incompetent. Either way they’re culpable in some respect, rather like Watergate. I’m not putting forward this view, just adding to the mix. I can believe the worst of this Government but I’m on the fence in all respects, teetering really – so far. I do fear they’ve manipulated the crisis to their own agenda to cull the elderly and ‘economically inactive’ – and all those weakened by the stress of austerity – a major consequence of chronic stress is that the constant flow of cortisol compromises the immune system and the brain capacity to manage it. They are going to be more likely to die from Covid-19 – would that then mean their cause of death should be recorded as a compromised immune system resulting form chronic stress? So far I can’t buy the arguments re martial law but I do feel uncomfortable with it.

I should have added that were they overstating deaths as an excuse to impose martial law then there would have been less underplaying of the problem, but it is possible that as it played out they saw a way to take advantage of the situation. It wouldn’t be surprising but still, I’m not decided.

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Grim Reaper

Mar 25, 2020 5:54 AM

“It means thousands of deaths currently widely attributed to Covid19, and being used to justify the introduction of measures equating to medical martial law, may not have died of covid19 at all but of their serious chronic co-morbidity (cancer, heart disease etc.).”

Yes people may still have died of their co-morbidity and the co-morbidity may not have been enough to lead to those deaths in the short term or longer term, so all that can be said is the Coronavirus was correlated with the deaths, when those deaths occurred – and potentially sooner rather than later.

“only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus”

I’m new to this website. Have lived with HIV 27 years the majority without medication or with a low dosage regimen. The description above is poor science. 80% of the deaths are correlated with the Coronavirus. Why have a whole discussion around terminology. If you end up being one of the people who dies where Coronavirus is present will you care if it was merely a tipping point where health trended downward???

“It means thousands of deaths currently widely attributed to Covid19, and being used to justify the introduction of measures equating to medical martial law, may not have died of covid19 at all but of their serious chronic co-morbidity (cancer, heart disease etc.).”

No, without Coronavirus present, those deaths may not have happened at all, so Coronavirus is correlated with those deaths. That’s what the MSM should have reported. As an aside in Australia the Guardian has a woman with a qualification in epidemiology who reports on medical articles.

Since you are the grim reaper, you should know the important distinction between ‘died’ of’ and ‘died with the presence of’. An autopsy and viral load test etc I imagine would be necessary to conclusively determine this important difference. Minus this, the only conclusive cases would be mortalities with zero co-morbidities. But there are hardly any. And yet so many people are all too eager to eat up this nothing-fear-burger, almost like it’s satisfying a public craving.

“An autopsy and viral load test etc I imagine would be necessary to conclusively determine this important difference.”

He (presumably, from the historical portrayal of the pseudonym and assuming the post is genuine) is a long term ‘living with HIV almost without drugs’ sufferer–interesting in itself, I should have thought–and, as someone who must every day be acutely consciously aware in the face of what are to most people usually nothing more than commonplace, trivial passing infections, to which they generally give almost no thought, he clearly states a position which in no way contradicts that of the article:

“Yes people may still have died of their co-morbidity and the co-morbidity may not have been enough to lead to those deaths in the short term or longer term, so all that can be said is the Coronavirus was correlated with the deaths, when those deaths occurred – and potentially sooner rather than later.” [Empasis added]

and

“If you end up being one of the people who dies where Coronavirus is present will you care if it was merely a tipping point where health trended downward???”

In fact, not only does he not contradict the point of the article, he–almost uniquely in this BTL land–illuminates that point with simple humanity positioned where the monomaniacally intolerant parrot usually perches.

And yes, of course he knows “the important distinction between ‘died’ of’ and ‘died with the presence of’”, he lives with it as a clear and present condition of his life–and in fact everyone’s life, however denied that usually is–every hour of every day. “Viral load” has been part of the writing on the wall of his mind for 27 years and, he seems to continue to hope, counting.

Because nobody would bother testing for SARS-CoV-2 or any other form of Coronavirus, or Rhinovirus or whatever other cold and flu causing pathogen is doing the rounds in under any other circumstances than this.

We’re looking for something, finding it, then concluding it’s the cause of the problem. Italy is reporting vastly higher fatality rates than everywhere else and their reporting practices explain this, which is the point of the article.

“We’re looking for something, finding it, then concluding it’s the cause of the problem. Italy is reporting vastly higher fatality rates than everywhere else and their reporting practices explain this, which is the point of the article.”

Did you write the book, “How to Miss Another’s Point While Piling On Your Own”, or are just using it as a style guide? Alternatively, just which syllable in

“…so all that can be said is the Coronavirus was correlated with the deaths, when those deaths occurred – and potentially sooner rather than later.”

do you fail to comprehend as not contradicting the ‘point of the article’?

“If you end up being one of the people who dies where Coronavirus is present will you care if it was merely a tipping point”

Probably not as I’ll be dead.

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Sakib Ahmad

Mar 24, 2020 10:05 PM

You have previously reported that over 99% of those who died in Italy after being infected with the “novel” coronavirus had pre-existing conditions. In this report the 99% figure has dropped to 88%. Which report is to be believed?

OK. Will re-read the earlier report tomorrow and see how it differs from the new one. Would have been helpful if Off-Guardian had offered a brief explanation, pointing out the essential differences between the two.

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Charlotte Russe

Mar 24, 2020 8:36 PM

“I want you to remember these people died WITH the coronavirus and not FROM the coronavirus.”

In other words, a patient could be hospitalized with stage four cancer, a heart condition, or for liver disease and subsequently contract COVID 19 in the same way hospital patients frequently die from pneumonia.

Oh my, who would have thought a hospital is a hotbed for germs and bacteria. Pneumonia, is probably what they’re dying from. When pneumonia is acquired in a hospital it tends to be more virulent, because the germs present in a hospital are often more aggressive and resistant to treatment. You can thank the overprescribing of antibiotics by physicians for this problem. Germs, want to survive like any other organism so they mutate to resist antibiotics. That’s why it’s wise to only use antibiotics sparingly and not for every little infection. If you take antibiotics too frequently your body will build up a resistance, and if you develop a serious infection they’ll need to treat the condition with a more powerful antibiotic, if one exists……..

Advice, if you can stay out of hospitals, do so. They’re rife with high resistant germs and bacteria….. In addition, try to build up your own immunity with vitamin supplements, a healthy diet, and regular exercise. And don’t smoke! Twenty-five percent of Italians smoke cigarettes.

‘ “I want you to remember these people died WITH the coronavirus and not FROM the coronavirus.”

It is worse, a patient comes in very sick and coughing, doomed so to say, and gets tested for CV19. The PCR test result is negative, but the patient is still Diagnosed as CV19+. – Why: because doctors fear to miss ‘the deadly and highly contagious CV19’ and therefore ‘clinically diagnose’ the patient as CV19+, after the poor lad gets admitted in isolation, and (when things detoriate, as happens in doomed patients) gets intubated and still dies days later due to multi-organ failure, which the doctors score as death due to Covid19.

This scenario is not far sought at all…

Up till all this began, people who had such a clinical scenario weren’t even sent to hospital, as they were given the decent option to die in their own home and surroundings.

When will this foolishness stop? When will it dawn on doctors that they are not saving patients (they could not be saved anyway), but only create an ‘epidemic’ by counting death due to normal causes as death due to coronavirus?

Not to mention family willingness to live and let live, the whereabouts of your last will, and other key social distancing, to use a current euphemism….NB:

KAFKA “METAMORPHOSIS” REDUX, A CENTURY’S UPDATE:

“Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find he had been transformed into a gigantic insect. As his novel virus progressed throughout the day, he was told by family members to shelter in place. Later, protocols of social distancing were added.”

Strictly it is the bacteria that build up resistance, not the body. And they don’t strictly “build up ” resistance: it’s more that those that can be killed by the antibiotic are killed, leaving more resources for those (perhaps a tiny handful at first) that can’t. Those then multiply at the fantastic speeds characteristic of bacteria in a favourable environment…

But Charlotte Russe’s conclusion is absolutely correct: overuse of antibiotics eventually makes them useless.

But then she didn’t say “…overuse of antibiotics eventually makes them useless” because that wasn’t her conclusion. Arse about face insight reveals the arse, obscures the face. That’s because it’s not insight.

I see I have already collected two 👎 dickwits who are also unable to distinguish between their bodies and a pathogen. May Ms Russe and her supporters never die as a result of a pathogen’s resistance to treatment engendered by some popular antiviral or antibiotic that was acquired down on their farm.

That right there is a giant clue to why the stats, not just in Italy but in varying ways, almost everywhere, are SO spiked and misleading: those of us who have had loved ones in ICU or CCU, have had to learn this the hard way, especially for aged parents or grandparents and such others elderly.

My 92 years young mother’s death certificate in 2009 showed pneumonia and heart failure as cause, with no mention at all of end-stage acute leukemia. But before her last hospital stay, I had been taking her next door daily for blood transfusions, in growing quantities. Meanwhile, her G.I. specialist had taken me aside a few weeks before and said, rather shocked, she’s had a “colonic loop” for years and other (life-ending) problems.

I had taken matters into my own hands three weeks before her swan song and carefully prepared ESSIAC tea for her. As a result, her white blood cell count, which is the main barometer of leukemia, dropped from 110, 000 per, to 50,000. In THREE days.

But she was already so compromised. She was tougher than any nail, always smiling serenely, she tapped dance for 5 minutes at one doc’s, to try to qualify for oxygen tank funding by Medicare, and narrowly missed out. It was $200 a day out of pocket, prohibitive for us starving artists. (She’d been a professional dancer in the 1930s before we kids came along, and I’m forever grateful that in her late 80s I took time to take her to stagey venues and film her, for the record, as none existed. On the Balboa Bay docks, European neighbors came out, rich folk, and thanked her, and me, they waited indoors and then gave her an ovation when we packed up, as we were leaving, coming out of their manses, saying they’d been watching her “as our only entertainment, and grand” for two hours…)

Her Romanian hematologist (read: a blood doctor from Transylvania?! you can’t make this up) was the most impressed by the drop in her white blood cells, but I didn’t tell her why. It’s useless.

She had told Mom when I first took her home, “If you bring her back here, she’s not leaving again.” Silly me, I though she meant she was going to make sure she was cared for professionally.

Ah, the Plausible Deniability of it all. With hindsight, I came to grasp, months after Mom had died, that Dr. Dracula meant she would be ultimately euthanized.

And that is, ultimately, what happened. Mom had a ferocious will packed into her five feet. She was quite ready to go, she only hung on for reasons of family solidarity and surreal stubbornness. So she kept rebounding. They wanted the bed in CCU for more lucrative reasons, but here she was breathing on her own, after they put her a week on a ventilator.

For all the bottom-line people at Hoag Hospital, awash in non-profit money, she was a bad penny, always turning up. Finally a nurse came in one morning and pulled the plug: ‘$orry, but she’s having kidney failure.”

Bollocks, they euthanized her.

I offer the above vignette not only as a human interest story, but as an example, however small in sample size as an anecdote, that the actual cause of death can be quite complicated.

ON MOM’S DEATH CERTIFICATE THERE WAS NO MENTION AT ALL OF HER TERMINAL LEUKEMIA.

But that was the only real “cause”. What was listed as causes were simply symptomatic of the ravaging bone cancer. The Transylvanian gorgeous ghoul had said bluntly March 25, “Two weeks! You have two weeks for her. That’s it.” And when she died April 16, she clearly could have lasted much longer.

If THEY had chosen to do so.

She was lucky to go. But the whole charade is one thing such hospitals are good at.

It simply demonstrates that the politics of dying and death certification can get quite obtuse and elsborate.

I’m sure the various COVID19 scenarios would tell quite a tale, but knowing them more accurately might have saved the human race from a worldwide stampede for toilet paper.

The hospitalized elderly or those in nursing homes with “compromised immune systems” often die of pneumonia. They are more susceptible to infection. A simple upper respiratory infection quickly escalates to pneumonia.

The privatization of public resources. The reason for Nye Bevan’s having to “stuff [the doctor’s] throats with gold” to get enough of them on board to make the NHS startup viable. The utter, systemic corruption of the capitalist-dominated medical and ‘health’ insurance rackets. Fish rot from the head down. To find the head of the UK’s medical fish, also known as vermin, get off at Baker Street. Go half a dozen blocks or so eastwards along Marylebone Road. Cross over. There it is. It’s called Harley Street.

“It simply demonstrates that the politics of dying and death certification can get quite obtuse and elsborate.”

I was quite surprised to find Jack Kevorkian alive and well and working as a senior nurse in a well hospice (!!) that unilaterally offed a relative a few years ago. Caused me a few moments of cognitive dissonance, despite have discovered for myself decades previously the highly questionable self-assurance of the medical profession along the lines of Peter Hitchen’s recent anti-lockdown article in the Mail (though I do see how, if you actually still, all these centuries after Hippocrates, know only about 5%* of what you need to know to fulfill your mission as an allopath, then a degree of psychological distancing of your self-image from your image in the bathroom mirror is probably a necessary adjunct to your routine bliss in the accumulation of professional fees).

*The conversational assessment of the remarkably down to earth surgeon who caught a near terminal cancer lurking in my corporeal manifestation a few decades ago. Probably 5.1% by now…

(Okay, it is Wikipedia, but I’ve checked the data against the sources, and it does provide a good graphical display)

Here, we see that over the last seven days the percentage increase in infections (cumulative) is 25%, 22%, 19%, 18%, 17%, 19%, with 12% being the figure for 24 March. In other words, the situation is improving, and reasonably quickly. Even the mentioned increase in deaths – 514 – is the lowest percentage increase for seven days.

Correct, it does say 19% now. The reason; Wikipedia adds new data on an ad-hoc basis during the day from a variety of sources. Spanish data dribbles out during the day, for some reason. The main point from my post is that when the BBC reported their fake news, the figures were as I quoted. The key phrase here is “the situation in the country quickly worsens.” Well that was not the case, based on the figures they would have been using at the time they wrote the article.

You are not missing anything. The BBC is a fully signed-up, security-services outlet which was in on 9/11 and has been promoting global genocide through Middle Eastern wars and more ever since.

You should never consider the BBC as representing you. It is a feeding trough for middle class woke nazi orderlies who are happy to see 20 million people bankrupted as long as they keep getting their £50k cheques every year.

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Doctortrinate

Mar 24, 2020 7:21 PM

where, is this all leading ….this reoriention, this stamp on society – we know it’s being prepared for redesign…and as of now, is on the edge of re-organised transformation, the levelling, out with the fabricated man made industry of old, and in with a new, artificial machine intellegence . But who decided this revolution, and who decides its future – who is it that thinks they have the right to take the people into the next movement without consultation or conversation, thoughts and feelings on all the possible futures, its results and effects, without any permanent safeguards for those who prefer otherwise. Especially being, that unlike other great turning points in mans journey…this one, will be a future decided by programmes and data patterns – with complete subservience to an IT mainframe…which is likely part of the experiment we have going on now, at home and connected…a drip conditioning, customizing us to the connection..and easier to control, than ever before.

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Cicatriz

Mar 24, 2020 7:20 PM

I was wondering whether to post this here, as David Crowe takes a bit of a non-mainstream view on viruses but nonteheless, I thought this was an interesting paper that mostly focuses on the flaws of the testing processes.

“Some people have fully recovered from illness blamed on coronavirus, started to test negative, and then tested positive again. According to a news report [22] patients are not considered cured in China until they no longer have symptoms, have clear lungs, and have two negative coronavirus tests. Despite this, 14% of discharged patients later tested positive, but with no relapse of symptoms. This is very difficult to explain if the test is for a virus, much easier to explain if the RNA that the test is looking for is not viral in origin.”

“A group of doctors in Marseille, France, working in a very experienced lab, that regularly does testingfor respiratory viruses, reported testing 4,084 samples for the novel coronavirus, using several systems approved for use in Europe, without a single positive [25]. This included 337 people returning from China who were tested twice, and 32 people referred because of suspected coronavirus infection.It is statistically improbable that this lab was just lucky to not get any coronavirus cases, it is more likely that they used more stringent criteria, illustrating that the performance of not just test kits, but labs, with this new test, is completely unknown.Yet, a positive test remains unquestioned in every case.”

I was talking to a chap I met when out for a walk today and we were naturally discussing the current situation. He actually listened to what I was saying about the statistics and the disingenuous way information is being fed to us, and he certainly seemed to genuinely be taking it in.

Something he said struck me. He said he was over 70 and therefore in the ‘at risk’ group and, this being so, he had been taking an interest in the alleged symptoms. As he put it, ‘one of the lists was as long as your arm, with headaches, fever, coughing, runny nose, sore throat, diarrhoea’. As he said, people are now being led to think that if they experience any of these they should assume that they may have coronavirus.

This is all part of the moving goalposts and fear mongering in action once again, encouraged by the media. I am almost certain that officially we are still supposed to regard fever and sore throat as the only true symptoms. But I have noticed that a significant proportion of the ‘faux infected’ brigade dominating the scare stories report these atypical symptoms. The media duly and dutifully encourages the pandemic narrative by extending the list of possible symptoms in order to pander to attention-seeking, self-absorbed nonentities and ‘snowflakes’ and to promote the atmosphere of panic.

I have been talking to dog walkers these past sunny days and none of them are taken in by the propaganda. All agree that dogs ‘do not cross their legs like us’ and think ‘one walk a day’ is not going to stop dogs crapping and pissing indoors if there is no back garden/yard to let them out into.

I do not know who it is who is taken in, but wherever they live, they do not live around my parts.

‘“Some people have fully recovered from illness blamed on coronavirus, started to test negative, and then tested positive again. According to a news report patients are not considered cured in China until they no longer have symptoms, have clear lungs, and have two negative coronavirus tests. Despite this, 14% of discharged patients later tested positive, but with no relapse of symptoms. This is very difficult to explain if the test is for a virus, much easier to explain if the RNA that the test is looking for is not viral in origin.”’

Because of an initial blunderbuss reflex this whole Off-Guardian series of COVID-19 articles has resulted in the conflation of two topics that, conjoined, make for a massive confusion of founded paranoia and unfounded stupidity. Both topics deserve the intelligent basis of individual analysis which their unfortunate, bundled start has signally failed to secure: the dramatic appropriation and subsequent political distortion of a medical phenomenon in the long ongoing but now rapidly escalating cause of denaturing the human value of the world’s ‘useless eaters’ on the one hand and, on the other hand, the extraordinary nature, aetiology and–perhaps intent–of the actual bug behind the pandemic and under the geopolitics. Disservice as a well-meaning but flawed service.

— there’s no such thing, because the definition of “paranoia” is the irrational fear of persecution. If your fear has a rational foundation, then you’re not paranoid, just attentive to objective reality.

For hundreds of millions of people to be confined to their homes indefinitely, to cower in fear in front of their telescreens, because of an allegedly deadly disease which has somehow not managed to shift the death rate anywhere from statistical normality, is an eruption of mass paranoia completely unprecedented in human history.

I can’t believe the amount of vitriol that’s being directed against this site at the moment.

For fecks sake, most western countries have now suspended elections and introduced what is effectively martial law; all this against the fear porn of what can be proven to be an almost totally bullshit crisis.

Vitriol yes – but it’s stupid stuff e.g. the totally unspecific claims to witnessing, or hearing about, expanding realms of carnage at some hospital of other, the assumption of a calm and reasoned observation that is usually phrased in the passive voice to generate a spurious objectivity, the fuming indignation and emotional blackmail that implies Off-G just doesn’t care about blandly presumed scenes of horror and then the ones that just resort to infantile name calling.

“AS OF 19 MARCH 2020, COVID-19 IS NO LONGER CONSIDERED TO BE A HIGH CONSEQUENCE INFECTIOUS DISEASE (HCID) IN THE UK.

The 4 nations public health HCID group made an interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify COVID-19 as an HCID. This was based on consideration of the UK HCID criteria about the virus and the disease with information available during the early stages of the outbreak. Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE ABOUT MORTALITY RATES (LOW OVERALL), and there is now greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase.

The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID.”

Someone ought to tell this to the ‘Government’ lackeys..
Send the Swiss Propaganda Research figures to all our MP’s and ask for their response.
IMO this is a massive psyop designed to see just how far they can push the compliance button.
The Police are already strutting their stuff telling people they are walking too close???
1984 is here now…

I haven’t seen a policeperson on foot for literally years. PCSOs maybe ?

One is reminded of “Don’t stand too close to me” by, err, the Police. 🙂

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DunGroanin

Mar 24, 2020 6:12 PM

The groan is full of crap (did Off-G discontinue the weekly piss take?)

Anyway here is the agenda of ratcheting down on the population and the divide and impoverish policy continuing.

‘The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said the delay in announcing help for the self-employed was down to it being “incredibly complicated” finding a way of designing a scheme that would help those in need, while not giving money to people who did not need it.’

Lol. These ‘middleclass’ waged workers with pensions and savings and stuff and the execs and bankers obviosly NEED it and the hand to mouth self employed – yes even these who only work for cash – supposedly don’t need it.

And Cancer patients will just have to wait for treatment because fkng flu is far more serious!
I’ve just written to my MP and told her to advocate for a euthanasia bill so that all us vulnerable people who are struggling to stay alive can exit this shit…

Depressed? You bet I am, being kept away from my precious Grandchildren. Face Time just doesn’t do it. I need a cuddle.
My daughter God bless her has devised story hour, where the boys and I get into bed, and I read them a story…

Social distancing
People still go to work, people still go to the supermarket, so isn’t all this social distancing entirely pointless? The virus stops travelling trough the air after a few meters? I don’t think so.

It is to be hoped that we have an early Spring this year. All the other measures are pointless or counterproductive (eg making the airconditioned supermarket the epicenter of where all people need to go to)

This comment is worth repeating although stating it feels like Groundhog Day (I said this before and in Groundhog Day they want an early spring)

We’ve had a really nice few days up here in The North. It’s another reason I find the lockdown ludicrous. We’ve come off a very wet and windy winter and now have the opportunity to get some fresh air and sun that will strengthen our immune system.

I’d like to see some qualatitive analysis that shows taking actions that will not help one’s immune system is safer than people just getting out. Obviously accounting for one’s personal circumstances.

It’s like every decision is designed to create the problem we’re trying to avoid.

Spring in the UK started in January, then we had another brief does in February, then again in early March. We have had just about the mildest winter in years.

I bet you you will found that the seasonal death figures for the UK winter 2019/20 will be LOWER than average.

When those figures come out, I truly hope that a few BBC journalists get their houses torched. Teach the smarmy little c**ts that lying for a living to condemn 20 million to penury has some consequences….

Unfortunately, Rhys, lying for a living to condemn millions to penury is the fundamental principle of our glorious capitalist system. People who do it successfully are honoured, rewarded, and highly prized.

On the afternoon of September 11 2001 I walked across the street, a large empty boulevard usually packed, convinced that I would not be attacked by a group of box-cutter-wielding terrorists, at least not immediately, before I restocked on 🍞 bread. The only others around as far as the eye could see were a few firemen buying some stuff, and a checker.

Media-caused panic by dubious reporting produced that. It’s real.

Work is US. I have confidence I can survive the bug, but I’m less confident about the global “viral reaction”. And it’s only Day 5, in L.A. At least I’m getting in shape, which always has paid off big time, in my late sixties.

“Face masks.
They don’t protect you. That’s why hazmat suits exist. They might limit the spread by infected people. So again entirely pointless, unless you are infected already.”
[…]
Am I ignorant and stupid, or is the rest of the world?”

Depends on what type of mask, as the denotation of ‘hazmat’ is not limited to microbiological infection control in specific environments thereof.

Infection control is not a pro personal liberties measure intended to protect already-infected individuals–the provision of good, easily accessed treatment facilities does that–it is a social responsibility measure intended to protect the liberties (including the ‘right to life’) of the not yet infected (as, unfortunately–“I’m alright Jack”–you oxymoronically point out.

You do not provide enough supplemental information on your ‘ignorant and stupid’ question to enable a definitive answer: either you are–and culpably so–or you are simply yet another mindless muppet offspring of the Reagan-Thatcher era that spawned a multitude of like, nasty, antisocial arseholes, wherein ‘ignoranted and stupified’ would be operationally identical but individually kinder descriptors.

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clickkid

Mar 24, 2020 5:11 PM

Country after country now implementing curfews. ‘Security’ being tightened everywhere.

This is just War with different weapons than the last one.
It’s main purpose as usual, is money. For the military industrialists and of course the bankers – they make money from all sides and their factories never get destroyed.

Since the 1st war whole new industries have got involved , chemicals, electronic and pharmaceuticals and whatever we now have like genetics etc.

They like to disrupt and destroy revolutionary forces which are the poorest people rebelling against the classes holding them down- the ancient war of slave against master – that means terror and death is deployed.

So this is (at least) the third world war, a periodic event to scalp all the wealth from the 99%, by giving loans/credit and then making conditions so they default and the security put up gets grabbed. Investments are encouraged in stock markets and shares sold at higher values and then crashed and picked up at a fraction. There will be a sop of a few thousand £’s a head handed to these whose earnings are destroyed, the millions of employed and self employed – gawd bless you master bozo you’ve looked after us, they’ll be potrayed as fawning. As laura will no doubt be working up in soft focus. Aaw and he’s got a new baby too!

Rinse and Repeat is their ancient game.

The Virus is being tracked back to its origin and it seems certainly not to have originated from the Wuhan market, as is proved by the initial infected who had no connection with it – all should have been.

The spooky coincidence of the miltary games held there with hundreds of US soldiers attending in October. The coincidence of world’leaders’ holding a round table scenario of a spread of a corona virus. Organised by Bill Gates also in October. The coincidence of the Italian, Spanish and Iranian outbreaks linked with US bases. The inexplicable failure of the WHO to declare the pandemic according to their protocols. And the utter failure of bozo and the tories and US not implementing testing and isolation until now to encourage a state of national emergency to grab more powers and pop the bubble with the excuse of the blackswan virus… we are as usual being toyed with and destroyed and robbed blind.

R&R

The stolen assets, privatisation, having being stripped & robbed and cannot be maintained are ‘failed’ and ‘saved’ by renationalisation with public money and fattened up for future reprivatisation

Rinse and Repeat.

People glued to msm are stampeded into the shops to buy bog roll and everything causing faster spread and chaos – more reason to pass mad dog draconian laws and ratchet down on future protests.

R&R.

There are some decent sites with relevant updates – MoA has been consistent and thorough. And the sooner we can get the 10’s of millions of test kits that will tell who has already had it and is therefore ‘immune’ the quicker these people will be able to get back into the public and normality will be seemingly restored with massive new powers enshrined and a pavlovian response instilled in the masses to volunteer into martial law!https://mobile.twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1241828745134190592

It can never be forgotten that the tories OWN this completely and why Jezza had to be stopped. We can guess what bozo was upto when he disappeared post election to a sunny island (to be fully briefed/inoculated) and why the response to the flooding was muted – there were bigger fish to fry than just pushing through the hard brexit.

I suppose if phil or betty croak it they’ll be put in deep freeze! Can’t suddenly say it’s ok to have masses in the streets for the funeral! Best save that for the long planned brave new world.

The Russians have been left out of the loop seemingly as they clear the ME of the head choppers and their backers – the only thing I can’t get my head around is that China head a top representative at Gates war game!

Maybe this is the decrepit Old Empire surrendering conditionally to the new Empire! To save the blushes of the old world order.

And Iran have accepted a loan from the IMF. My computer has packed up so I can’t give you the link but my husband found it this morning. I’m overheated and the fan is kerput. I just don’t know what to do with myself now? I rely on it to research. Guess I’ll have to watch the TV now. At least I will know that the opposite is true. Husband says they’ll be cutting off internet access if we cynics become too vocal and our opinions get into the general public at large. Though I won’t hold my breath, platos cave analogy applies.

This scenario was predicted by the Financial Times and others in slickly produced YouTube videos. However the idea was not in general circulation or the MSM. Hardly surprising when the concept is utterly bizarre. They forecast a post-apocalyptic Red Indian style existence with no aeroplanes. If this were a planned event which the FT had announced through its videos and mass liquidations (of companies maybe humans too) were on the way I suggest that the stock markets would have crashed to nothing by now.
I don’t know. It could be real or it might be for the benefit of those who see through the Corona virus and who are perhaps fearing for their lives. A more palatable explanation than mass murder.

The lockdown might have a simple explanation: They are expecting trouble.

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Eric McCoo

Mar 24, 2020 4:57 PM

As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK.

The 4 nations public health HCID group made an interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify COVID-19 as an HCID. This was based on consideration of the UK HCID criteria about the virus and the disease with information available during the early stages of the outbreak. Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall), and there is now greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase.

The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID.

The need to have a national, coordinated response remains, but this is being met by the government’s COVID-19 response.

Here in Cyprus, unable to get through to the number for SMSing for permission to go out, I risked a brief walk in the neighbourhood. The streets are eerily free of all traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, just an hour or so after the start of the virtual curfew.

Yes, but Alan that only affects brown people in poor countries. I saw an estimate of 3000 deaths per day every day.

Other diseases that affects mostly brown people in poor countries:

Hepatitis-b 2400 deaths on average per day
HIV/Aids 2100 deaths per day
Malaria 2000 deaths per day
Shigellosis 1600 deaths per day*
Rotavirus 1200 deaths per day
Norovirus 540 deaths per day*

* Mostly kills brown children in poor countries.

All those racist liberals should be very ashamed of themselves for wetting themselves over covid-19.

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SteveEss

Mar 24, 2020 2:49 PM

Daily reader… First time poster…

Being a lifelong “bean counter”, I know how easily numbers can be manipulated to serve any purpose… I’m not shocked by the discrepancies and constant contradictions in the world’s “positive/fatal” numbers… What has shocked me is another number… The number of “clueless”…😟

I must admit even I am aghast at how many sheep there actually are in the world… I’m incredulous at the cowtowing, the sheer numbers of obedient, complacent people-cattle that populate this planet, and (mindlessly) are happy to maintain any directive of the day…

I find it all to be so disappointing, repulsive, yet spectacular to watch at the same time… Naive me… Wondering where all the enlightened people have gone amidst the millions of lemmings… There surely have to be far more free thinkers, no…?

And as I watch the world’s Policy-Makers and Thought-Police lead this huge covid-19 lockstep march of the masses to their impending doom, I’m reminded of an old joke, which has now taken on new relevance for me…

The one about the Optimist who jumps off the roof of a 20-story building… And as he passes each floor, he’s heard to say out loud, “So far, so good!”…

People who work closely with statistics or other ways of using numbers to account for things and the process of creating these numbers tend to understand how fuzzy they are by nature. Most people, including most journalists and politicians are innumerate. They clearly have no idea where numerical figures come from or how to place them in any kind of context. As for the general populace, they are basically still ignorant peasants/serfs whose main aim is to make it through the day and who still generally live in a mythical universe. Mind you they luve in a mythical universe generally due to the work of politicians and journalists.

Consider our brilliant Governor of California, one G. Newsom (very handsome, very stupid). Who proclaimed to the entire state that draconian social engineering was necessary to “bend the curve” of what he promised would be 22 million cases of respiratory illnesses he believes will be “caused” by the corona virus recently identified and represented by the Coronavirus 19 PR team at the WHO. Now, 22 million is a lot and comes to 244,444 NEW cases each and every day for 90 days, rising and falling in a perfect bell curve fashion (cause the virus must behave properly!). Currently, the public health offices report that about 1733 cases have been “tested positive” out of about 14,300 tests in the last three weeks in California. Currently, about 240-260 new cases a day as testing has ramped up from zero to full capacity of about 6000 tests a day. That’s a very long way to 244,444 new cases, on average each day, rising and falling in parabolic fashion over three months. (even assuming positive tests reflect 1/100 cases in population). But neither he nor those who he has surrounded himself with understands just how silly these predictions are given the actual numbers their testing regime is producing. Now assuming those tested are among those with seasonal Influenza like illnesses (fever and couch or fever and sore throat) the important thing to keep in mind is that tests DO capture most who may need medical care, about 5% of whom, according to the WHO, will need intensive care in hospital. If 260 test positive in a day, 13 may need hospital care statewide (39 million people in a very big state). There are currently 78,000 beds in state hospitals. I think they will find 13 available beds. Let’s say it gets 100 times worse to 2600 positive tests a day, still only 130 beds. How about 1000 times worse…26,000 positive cases a day (which is happening nowhere in the world), 1300 beds.

I remember as a schoolboy marking out one of my classmates as a beadle, after he refused to show me a routine CCF pamphlet ‘cos it was “official”.
It was so alien, which is why I recall it 40-plus years later. We were just ’70s kids but we spoke freely, and mocked each other along with all the pop stars of the day — Rod Stewart was clearly a “gobbler” in our adolescent eyes. Try as we might to shock each other, we felt we were conservative compared to what little we knew of the ’60s. Our ideas were much less diverse than we imagined, yet they seemed to roam as freely as our childish imagined gangs, through the city and the woods beyond.
What happened? Whence did this need to be the same arise? This look of censure and reproach that is so common nowadays, ESPECIALLY among the 20-30 somethings.

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Mucho

Mar 24, 2020 2:31 PM

Today on R5 a policeman was interviewed about his daughter who had CV19. It was verrrry interesting. It was on the EMma Barnett show at 1015am.
The policeman said his daughter was recovering when asked how she was (so not very ill then) , and then when asked specifically about symptoms he said she had a cough and a temperature. EB then asked if she had taken a test to which he said “no but I am 99% sure it was coronavirus”. Sorry, what kind of POLICEMAN says he is 99% sure about something when all he has is some vague, purely circumstantial evidence to go on? A cough and a temperature does not equal coronavirus. There is a beautiful irony here though, because Wolfgang Wodarg has confirmed that at any one given time, there are usually 100 viruses in circulation which give these symptoms…….so he could have said “I am 1% sure it’s coronavirus”, that would be accurate given the evidence he failed to weigh up properly, but he said he was 99% sure. He then went on to do a huge propaganda piece for more police. Yawn. That’s the last thing we need.
Busted again. These people ar finished, their scam has been uncovered, there is no excuse, there is nowhere to hide, these people are the enemy of mankind

It also goes say that the “models” predicting 10s of millions ill and 10s of thousands dead and the need to use these draconian measures to “bend the curve” are complete nonsense. What China demonstrated to the world is how effective it can be behaving like the radical totalitarian state that that it is. And make that totalitarian model of government “the new normal” world wide. What it did not do is demonstrate that these measures had any impact at all on 1) spreading 10s of millions of illnesses out over many many months rather than an acute up and down epidemic (which is what happened on rather boring scale) and 2) these measures would prevent an outbreak of corona virus 19 testing mania on a global scale (aka the global “pandemic”).

China is a ‘radical totalitarian’ state only in the eyes of racist Sinophobes and Orientalists. China is a different civilization from the West, where the Government is meant to protect all the population, not just the ruling economic elites. The Chinese approach was concerted and thorough, driven by science, was flexible and worked. THAT is what irks Western supremacists.

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sabelmouse

Mar 24, 2020 2:26 PM

it’s like invasion of the body snatchers out there [ireland]
the internet has clearly been wasted on humans

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pasha

Mar 24, 2020 2:14 PM

Seriously? Believing what you’re told by one “expert” who may be no such thing and may have an agenda?
Forget the hysteria. Concentrate on what’s real. What we know for definite, certain. What’s undeniably true. Thus.
1) Capitalist, or for-profit, health systems have been cut to the bone, in order to maximize those profits.
2) Socialized, or non-profit, health systems have been cut to the bone, in the name of cost-cutting or “austerity”.
3) Both minimalized systems allowed for normal seasonal variations in disease, e.g. annual influenza outbreaks. But we can see how stressed such systems were by additional localized outbreaks of measles or mumps caused by wackjob antivaxers.
4) Covid, therefore, is a totally new factor. It has not been allowed for in any calculation in any system, whether capitalist or austerian. This is the real reason for world-wide governmental panic: even a minor additional systemic outbreak of disease will stress the system beyond the breaking point. We have seen this everywhere. It doesn’t matter what the proximate cause of the additional deaths are. The fact is that more people are dying and more people are sick, requiring more and better treatment than systems can provide.

If things get any worse we will seen troops (armed police, there’s no difference) on the streets, forcing people to stay home at the point of a gun. This is the only way the Masters of the Universe can prevent a total collapse of the health care system. Better to shoot you than allow you to occupy a hospital bed that might be needed by one percenters.

So, a measles ‘virus’ comes along and you put your boxing gloves on and begin to biff it on the nose. But then ‘the experts’ send Goliath, built like a chicken brick thingy house who gives you a wack across the head, knocks you flat on the floor – in order to teach you how better to fight the measles guy. Possibly you fall ill with ‘Goliath’ whilst never learning how to fight the measles chappie who your ancestors have fought for years in order to protect you from other more serious illnesses?

Vaccination, when to commence, how many to have, how dangerous are the vaccines and ‘adjuvants’ and do they have deleterious long-term effects etc, is and are complex questions, reduced in the usual self-lobotomising fashion to pro and anti vaccine camps, reduced to abuse and denigration. Another triumph of Western Civilization, Inc.

nobody gets vaccinated for tuberculosis, which was a major killer in the nineteenth century, and yet the only significant risk factor for it is poverty. for the overwhelming majority of people in industrialized countries, improved standards of nutrition, housing, clean water, and sanitation have essentially eliminated it.

As nonsensical a measure as GDP is, a collapse in that will mean a collapse in tax receipts. This means cuts in spending, more borrowing and ever more extreme QE and ZIRP.

With vastly reduced production, increased money supply (especially with UBI proposed) I see a lot of inflation on the horizon and a collapse of spending power.

Add that to a populace that has been house bound for months. Reduced exercise, sunlight exposure, social contact and perhaps a diet even worse than usual if this continues. These things are not conducive to good health.

It looks to me like the goal is to destroy the health service to save the service.

I fear you are right and not only is the NHS under threat but also all government spending outside of defence and security.
As Craig Murray points out in his blog:

The vast bulk of the £330 billion business bailout will find its way in huge tranches into mega-companies. The airline industry has already requested £7.5 billion, to give just one example. That is a series of simple large cheques for an overstretched civil service to write. I strongly suspect that the loans to small businesses, started today, will be slow and bureaucratic and difficult to access. They will be subject to bank interest – the bankers always win – which for a period will be paid by the taxpayer. Many of these measures when you analyse them are in the long term more transfers of money from the taxpayers to the banks.

It has been widely noted that money is suddenly magically available which was denied to industrial strategy and to the NHS for decades. But do not be fooled; this is not a conversion to Keynes by the Tories. In bailing out the airlines, Branson is not going to be asked to put back one penny of his personal wealth, and nor is David Ross nor any of the other billionaires. Those who have made vast fortunes in our ever-expanding wealth gap are not going to be asked to put anything back into the companies or system which they exploited. Massive state subsidies will predominantly go to the biggest companies and benefit the paid agency of the bankers. You and I will pay. The taxpayer will ultimately pick up the tab through what may prove to be another decade of austerity imposed as a result of another transfer of wealth from us to banks, financial institutions and big companies. The small and medium companies which will go to the wall – and a great many will – are going to provide rich pickings in a few months time for the vultures of the hedge funds and other disaster capitalists.

Absolutely: Jack Rasmus further notes that for many of these corporations – especially the airlines – as much as 96% of their revenue streams for the last decade have gone on share buybacks and to pay dividends. Now they want a bailout?

He calls them “piggies at the trough”. Many of them will end up with “stealth nationalisation” – or socialism for billionaires. Let them use their own funds if they want to practice capitalism.

If not: let’s bring the whole thing under democratic accountability and end privatised profits from socialised risks.

cue full-spectrum media-narrative blitzkrieg about how this crisis proves that the NHS is simply no longer fit for purpose as a *public* going concern and so we simply *MUST* sell the lot off to those nice, benevolent, humanitarian HMO oligarchs who only have everybody’s best interests at heart and will obviously do such a stellar job running it so much better as a private enterprise…

“The fact is that more people are dying” I really would like to see the evidence to support this so called fact. Here in England, the fact is, according to the Office for National Statistics, fewer people are dying.

“If things get any worse we will seen troops (armed police, there’s no difference) on the streets, forcing people to stay home at the point of a gun. This is the only way the Masters of the Universe can prevent a total collapse of *their ponzi scheme/gambling casino financial system (ie: robbery from the 99.9%).* Better to shoot you than allow you to *publicly assemble to protest/revolt against the wholesale theft of resources and the common wealth* that might be needed by one percenters.”

There aren’t enough police, armed or otherwise. It will be EU or Commonwealth troops OR, more likely, private police…

or the ‘civilian contingency – I’m sure the UK has a equivalent:

NUMBER 1400.32
April 24, 1995
USD(P&R)
SUBJECT: DoD Civilian Work Force Contingency and Emergency Planning
Guidelines and Procedures
2.2. Applies to DoD civilian work force preparedness for and participation in
support of humanitarian missions, disaster relief, restoring order in civilian disorders,

Private thugs, for sure. Private security in Spain, for example, is mostly run by known far Right zealots. Meanwhile, in Colombia, that beacon of ‘Freedom and Free Markets’ murders of social activists have increased in recent days, the death-squads taking advantage of the corona confusion.

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Steve Hayes

Mar 24, 2020 1:56 PM

The Office for National Statistics has just released the number of registered deaths in England and Wales for the week ending the 13th of March. As for the previous week, the number of registered deaths is down on the previous five year average, although not by as much.

This trend of fewer deaths is not compatible with the notion that were are in the midst of a public health crisis that requires the suspension of human rights and civil liberties: ie, the cancellation of jury trials, the cancellation of elections, the abrogation of the right to assembly, the power of arbitrary arrest and detention, the violation of the right to family life (Gove may have back tracked on this).

The responses to the coronavirus are going to do more harm than the virus will.

I have posted this paper previously elsewhere but, in case you and others may have missed it, it reports on a study carried out previously in Italy looking at how critical the public and media interface is in manipulating, if not controlling even, official policy to the point that Governments feel duty bound to introduce disproportionate legislation. The key findings of pertinence to the coronavirus ‘lockdown’ are explained in the section entitled “Discussion”.

If Thierry thinks that’s all there is to Italy’s sick, covid-infected people, then he’s wrong. In an above post, I mention an interview with professor Lass, a former Israeli health ministry chief. In that interview he notes some addition factors in the sickness of those Italians, having to do with their heavy smoking. And somewhere I read that norther Italy (Lombardi region), pollution is heavy. But I’ll read the Thierry Meyssan article in order to see exactly what he says. Thanks.

I have never feared getting malaria, it is not endemic in Italy, many cases are caused by people returning from infected areas. We are in the midst of the biggest problem that our country has confronted since the last world war and the lock down is very challenging 15 days into it. I am waiting for the virologists and other experts to find out the cause and origin of this virus, information I understand is being fed into a central point, and if there is opennes and honesty we hope in the future to know more than we know now.

Could be that the same reasons why those regions were more susceptible to malaria are also the same reasons they are more susceptible for corona. (Smoking, pollution.)

I find those reasons not entirely convincing though. The north of Italy can’t be the only place where people still smoke a lot or where there’s a lot of pollution.

But I am now going on the assumption that Italy IS NOT a special case at all, based on the article above.

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Thom

Mar 24, 2020 1:30 PM

Let’s hope this turns out to be the moment western governments ‘jumped shark’. I can remember the smug smiles of the Mail and Sun readers at my local Sainsbury’s the morning after the Conservatives won the election in December. They weren’t smiling this morning as they queued a metre apart to be let in, watched by the manager and the security goon. Not exactly the sunny uplands they were expecting.
Not that Corbyn has acquitted himself at all well in this crisis, parroting the government line, cloaked in NHS platitudes – deeply disappointing from him.

Speaking of security goons (I’m a security guard and I hate the biz), I just got an email from my (huge) security company preaching at me about social distancing. They are USELESS!!! I’ve been in security, full time, since 1999 and I make minimum wage here in Toronto. I hope like hell that I win my retirement (lottery) because I do not want to work for them, or any boss, another day. As things stand, I have to work until I die or something else happens, because if I didn’t, I’d starve and be unable to pay my bills. And there’s Donald Trump, in his obscene SOTU address, threatening those like me who might complain about the system he worships.

You’re still surprised–at this late date–by how weak Corbyn is? Did he ever once stand up to the anti-semitism hoaxers smearing his party? Did he ever once stand up to the Remainer extremists in his own party? Why do you suspect he’d be standing up to the Corona-hoaxers now if he were PM?

Was Corbyn just a coward, or a Trojan Horse? If you watch Vanessa Redgrave at the Oscars where she won for her role in Julia, she calmly and bravely fronts the Zionist thugs who had tried to derail her candidacy, and congratulates the members of the Academy who had voted for her (despite so many being Jews). That courage and moral commitment was what Corbyn lacked. One or two similar speeches might well have routed the lying slanderers.